PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 199 



England, found lying- ovei* the hills, rocks and valleys, is often from one 

 foot to 250 feet deep; composed of elements of fertility, and are adapted 

 to the production of fruits, grasses and woods of all kinds. The silica 

 furnishes materials for a solid, compact body to the tree, while the stalks 

 of all kinds of grain and Indian corn are strong in their growth, and sel- 

 dom prostrated by storms and rains; wherever there is iron it is almost 

 always accompanied with sulphur. The atmosphere takes hold of the 

 sulphur, and with the rain and moisture soon forms the sulphuric acid; this 

 combines with the iron, magnesia, soda, potash and lime, making sulphate 

 of lime or plaster of Paris, sulphate of magnesia or epsom salts, sulphate 

 of soda or Glauber salts, sulphate of iron or copperas, and other salts. 

 The great mass of the soils of New England are rich in salts of many 

 kinds, while the snows and the rains coming in from the Gulf stream fill the 

 atmosphere with ammonia, which is brought down fi'om the heavens, filling 

 the ground and soil with a quickening fertility. The great trouble in New 

 England has always been, that the soils compact themselves, inclining to 

 a hard pan formation, but when these soils are dug and stirred up with 

 subsoil plows, and made loose, the}^ ever respond with heavy, luxuriant 

 crops of grass, fruit trees, and excellent fruit of all kinds, from the straw- 

 berry to the quince and pound pippin apples. 



It would be difficult to give any exact analysis of the different stratifica- 

 tions of the rocks in New England, as to their mineral contents; some of the 

 granites run from 10 to 20 and to 30 per cent., and even 50 per cent, of feld- 

 spar, rich in potash, while mica slate frequently passes into talcose slate, 

 containing a very large proportion of magnesia, also the salts of iron, rich 

 with sulphur and sulphates. The limestone along on the western bank of 

 Connecticut river contains from 10 to 40 per cent, of silica; some have 

 more or less alumina Vv'ith them, also mica and mpgnesian rock, while west 

 along the Green Mountains, magnesia, manganese and the oxydes of iron 

 abound in most of the rock formations found there. In mica slate, in many 

 parts of New England, the sulphuret of iron often reaches as high as 60 

 to 15 per cent., forming beds out of which copperas is manufactured; then 

 again all the micas generally possess from 2 to 16 percent, of the sulphuret 

 of iron, and when blasted out of the original rock- it is soon found to be 

 decomposed and come into soil. 



The talcose rock, mica slate rocks, granite rocks and lime rocks, when 

 lying adjacent to each other, often pass into each other by insensible gra- 

 dations; so much so, that lime lying next to mica slate will often contain 

 from 30 to 53 per cent, silica, and then again the limestone, when next and 

 adjacent to talcose slate, will often abound in magnesia, and the mica slate 

 will abound in lime; and the talcose and mica slate along the Green 

 Mountains will be redundant manj' times in magnesia, sulphuret of iron 

 and the sulphates of iron, and also carbonates of lime. One specimen of ser- 

 pentine or talcose slate yielded, silica 42, alumina T, lime 3, iron 27, mag- 

 nesia 60, water 12. Another specimen yielded silex 43, alumina 3, iron 

 10, magnesia 30, soda 2, water 12; while almost all of the salts contain 

 a large quantity of oxygen — indeed all the salts are oxydes of some kind, 

 either sulphates, carbonates, nitrates, phosphates, muriates or unknown . 

 acids in composition. 



